Australasian Science Magazine Issue March 2012

Diet and lifestyle are rarely considered when assessing how people respond differently to drugs, yet ethnic differences in cooking styles, contraception, smoking, and caffeine and alcohol consumption can have a significant impact – especially in treatments for mental health.

The rate of taste disorders in children exceeds World Health Organisation guidelines, and combined with smell disorders compromises the nutritional health of a significant proportion of young Australians.

A warmer climate causes grasslands to dry out faster, but a new study has found that more efficient water use by plants in response to rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere could completely offset the drying effect caused by warming.

A year since a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the coast of Japan, triggering a powerful tsunami and resulting in the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl, nuclear and disaster experts examine the current situation and what lessons can be learnt.

Arguably Australia’s most internationally experienced and prominent chemistry researcher, Professor John White continues to produce original research long after normal retirement age, and he is, unshakeably, a committed Christian.

‘Desal’ technology has been in place on Pacific atoll nations since as early as the 1980s, so why did recent droughts invoke a state of emergency? Current reverse osmosis desalination research focuses on the needs of the industrial world, which are far removed from the challenges faced in developing tropical nations.